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LCD television
Liquid-crystal-display televisions (LCD TV) are television sets that use liquid-crystal displays to produce images. LCD televisions are thinner and lighter than cathode ray tube (CRTs) of similar display size, and are available in much larger sizes. When manufacturing costs fell, this combination of features made LCDs practical for television receivers. History Portable televisions Refresh rates of early devices were too slow to be useful for television. Portable pocket televisions were a target application for LCDs. LCDs consumed far less battery power then even the miniature tubes used in portable televisions of the era. The first LCD televisions were invented as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko's R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.Spin, Jul 1985, page 55 In 1982, Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with an active-matrix LCD television.The world's first television-watch, with an active-matrix LCD, EpsonMichael R. Peres, [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NMJxyAwGvKcC&pg=PA306 The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, page 306], Taylor & Francis In 1983, Casio released a handheld LCD television, the Casio TV-10. In 1984, Epson released the ET-10, the first full-color, pocket LCD television.A HISTORY OF CREATING INSPIRATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Epson The same year, Citizen Watch,Popular Science, May 1984, page 150 another Seiko Hattori subsidiary (along with Epson), introduced the Citizen Pocket TV, a 2.7-inch color LCD TV, with improved picture quality compared to Casio's model, and the first TFT LCD display. By 1985, two other Seiko Hattori subsidiaries had also introduced TFT LCD handheld televisions, with Seiko's color micro-TV and the Epson ELF. Large televisions Passive matrix LCDs first became common in the 1980s for various portable computer roles. At the time they competed with plasma displays in the same market space. The LCDs had very slow refresh rates that blurred the screen even with scrolling text, but their light weight and low cost were major benefits. Screens using reflective LCDs required no internal light source, making them particularly well suited to laptop computers. Resolutions were initially limited to standard definition, although a number of technologies were pushing displays towards the limits of that standard; Super VHS offered improved color saturation, and DVDs added higher resolutions as well. Even with these advances, screen sizes over 30" were rare as these formats would start to appear blocky at normal seating distances when viewed on larger screens. Projection systems were generally limited to situations where the image had to be viewed by a larger audience. Nevertheless, some experimentation with LCD televisions took place during this period. In 1988, Sharp Corporation introduced the first commercial large LCD television, a 14" model with active matrix addressing using thin-film transistors (TFT).Hirohisa Kawamoto (2013), The history of liquid-crystal display and its industry, HISTory of ELectro-technology CONference (HISTELCON), 2012 Third IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, DOI 10.1109/HISTELCON.2012.6487587 These were offered primarily as boutique items for discerning customers, and were not aimed at the general market. At the same time, plasma displays could easily offer the performance needed to make a high quality display, but suffered from low brightness and very high power consumption. However, a series of advances led to plasma displays outpacing LCDs in performance improvements, starting with Fujitsu's improved construction techniques in 1979, Hitachi's improved phosphors in 1984, and AT&T's elimination of the black areas between the sub-pixels in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, plasma displays were far in advance of LCDs. The release of Sharp's large LCD TV in 1988 led to Japan launching an LCD television industry. In the late 1990s, the LCD television industry began shifting away from Japan, towards South Korea and Taiwan. See also *Ambilight, Philips Electronics technology *Comparison of CRT, LCD, Plasma, and OLED *Large-screen television technology *Pixel Plus *Quattron, an LCD TV technology from Sharp which utilizes a fourth pixel color, yellow *Thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display, a detailed discussion of LCD panels technology References External links *Chemicals to fabricate LCD television are distributed by Merck Group (DE), and Yancheng Smiling (CN). Category:Liquid crystal displays Category:Television technology Category:Television terminology Category:Japanese inventions